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A LITTLE MORE OF AUDEN
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Auden’s first poem was published in 1924, he was seventeen years old. Even though Auden chose a life of English rather than following in the footsteps of
his father; his love for science was apparent with his unshakable interest in logic and the complex study of poetic meters
and versification. From 1930 to 1935 an already titled poet, he school mastered in England; after this Auden went to Iceland
and Spain with Louise MacNeice in 1937. It was from this visit during the Civil
that becomes another factor in Auden’s life that eventually leads him back to Christianity. Scholars still think of
Auden’s poem “Spain 1973,” to be his cornerstone of political verse.
This is causing critics to become more aware of the political content. Grass
explains Auden to have been into activism; the Spanish were in trouble in the war and Auden felt they should be supported,
or at least those who were left. The most important development made throughout
the poem was Auden’s journey to Spain, and back to Oxford (Grass).
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His early poems, in the late 1920s and 1930s, interchanged between ambiguous modern
styles and comprehensible conventional ones, and were written in passionate and dramatic tones. He established his character and reputation as a left-wing political, opinionated poet and clairvoyant.
He became uneasy and uncomfortable in this role in the later 1930s, and abandoned it (Brophy 4-6).
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Early English Letter, put here to represent science moving to English.
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In 1938 a year and a half after he went to Spain and Iceland, Auden
along with Christopher Isherwood traveled to China, for a tour of the Sino-Japanese conflict, in which Journey To war came from; in the last stretch of their journey they stayed in New York City, New York. They stayed for two weeks in the summer and decided he wanted to stay in the United States. Auden officially became a resident of the United States in 1946, he was 32, and was considered to already
be the leading British poet of his generation; he had five well-received volumes of poetry, and authored and co-author many
controversial, but successful verse plays (Firchow). It is in the U.S. where he will truly shine.
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